Romney may vote for Johnson

The Telegraph reports:

On Friday Mr Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, said he would consider voting Libertarian.

It would be the highest profile support yet for the third party, potentially spurring significant numbers of mainstream Republican voters to switch.

The Libertarian Party has traditionally been viewed as a fringe, and somewhat chaotic, group with some outlandish policies. In 2012 it secured just one per cent of the vote.

But the ticket this time has an exceptional amount of experience. Mr Johnson’s running mate is Bill Weld, the former Republican Governor of Massachusetts, who led that state before Mr Romney.

Mr Romney said he had “enormous respect” for Mr Weld, and described him as a “fine friend”.

He told CNN: “It would be very easy for me to vote for Bill Weld for president. “I’ll get to know Gary Johnson better and see if he’s someone who I could end up voting for. That’s something which I’ll evaluate over the coming weeks and months.”

A Romney endorsement would be huge and I think be enough to get them over 15% in the polls, and into the debates.

Libertarian policies, summed up as “minimum government, maximum freedom,” appeal strongly to many Republicans who want to slash taxes, eviscerate government spending, extend gun rights, and avoid overseas military commitments.

Immediately after Mr Trump secured the party’s nomination online searches for “Libertarian” quintupled.

As Governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003 Mr Johnson’s fiscal conservatism was legendary, earning him the nickname “Governor Veto” as he set national records for refusing to sign spending bills.

As president he would eliminate numerous government departments and replace all income and corporate taxes with a national 28 per cent sales tax, which he claims would create tens of millions of jobs.

And their budget actually balances.

Some eyebrows were raised when America’s powerful National Rifle Association recently endorsed Mr Trump, rather than Mr Johnson, but he still hopes to pick up the votes of many gun owners.

Asked if there should be any gun control at all, he said: “We should be controlling a nuclear-tipped hand held device.”

Heh.

Mr Johnson’s key goal is to get into the televised presidential debates, which he describes as the “Super Bowl”. To do so he needs to hit 15 per cent in the polls, just three points higher than the 12 per cent he scored in a Fox News poll released on Thursday.

I hope they make it.